Or maybe it was when Oksana Chusovitina topped both of them by claiming the silver medal in Sunday's individual event competition, 16 years after her first Olympic appearance.
It's true. Chusovitina is 33. Thirty-three!
How weird is this? Sacramone spends three days blaming herself for the Americans' second-place finish in the team finals, having lost to the Chinese gymnasts, a few of whose ages are being widely questioned because they appear to be nowhere near 16, as required for Olympic participation in this sport.
And then she shows up again at National Indoor Stadium, bravely intending to leave Beijing with a better feeling about the end of her gymnastics career, and she misses a medal by one place, while losing to a 33-year-old mother who claims the silver. She also ends up behind a Chinese vaulter who's at least genuinely old enough to be competing, but hardly sticks the landing on her way to a bronze.
"Considering she landed on her knees, I thought her deduction was going to be a little bit higher than it was," Sacramone said.
Cheng was penalized for the landing, but the format of having the average for two vaults serve as the final score enabled her to medal.
Chusovitina was thrilled to finish second behind Korea's Hong Un Jong, having first competed in the Olympics in 1992. Having grown up in Uzbekistan, she once was in the Soviet Union's national program with Valeri Liukin, the Texas-based father and coach of all-around champion Nastia Liukin.
"Unbelievable," Valeri Liukin said. "I have no idea how she's doing it."
Who does? "I hurt, and I'm 16," said American gymnast Shawn Johnson. "She's definitely an inspiration."
OK, so maybe Chusovitina's example will motivate Johnson to keep competing clear until she's . . . 20, in 2012. But 33? Uh, no.
Or how about 37? "The question is asked every day. She always says, 'I will do it as long as I can,' " said her coach, Shanna Poljakova.
Chusovitina, who recently moved to Germany, is talking about another Olympics. As for Sacramone, she was realizing the silver medal that made her so unhappy in the team finals would have to satisfy her -- eventually.
"I'm sure someday I'll fully appreciate what it is, but I still have to kind of get to that point," she said.
After Johnson and Liukin went 2-3 in the floor exercise later Sunday, following their 1-2 finish (in the other order) in the all-around competition, Johnson now has three silvers and Liukin owns gold, silver and bronze. "I'm more than happy with silver," Johnson said, resisting any suggestion of frustration about missing gold.
Johnson still has Tuesday's beam final; Liukin is up on bars tonight, then beam. Sacramone is finished.
"I would have given anything to have her get a medal" Sunday, Johnson said.
Instead, after everything Sacramone went through to regroup and prepare herself for one last gymnastics event before going back to college, her misfortune in Beijing continued.
It started when a teammate's injury disrupted the starting order on the floor in the team preliminaries and a poor effort kept her from making the individual final in her best event. Then came a long delay before she went on the beam in the team finals, and she struggled there, could not shake the bad feelings and fell again on the floor.
Sunday, she drew the No. 1 spot for the vault, and judges tend to hold back good scores at the start. So, she took fourth place -- but third, in the 32-and-under age group.
"I definitely had to pull myself together a little bit, and the last couple days have not been easy," she said, "but you know, I went out there and finished my Olympic Games the best I could."
And she certainly will have stories to tell someday, assuming she cares to remember them.
